While admitting they may be some way from breaking into the first team, Nuno explained why he has now added Ezra Mayers, Finlay Herrick, Airidas Golambeckis, and Mohamadou Kante (above) to senior training.
“Four players of our academy are working every day with us: Finlay, Airidas, Ezra, and Mo,” said Nuno.
“This is the best space that all academy players have is to play alongside and to train alongside professional and talented players.
“You don't have to tell anything, you just say look at him, try to reproduce what you see in him. Airidas, look at our centre-halves’ experience, and midfielders, look at midfielders, this is how I look at the academy.
“Can we bring players and develop them? Maybe it's not for now, but maybe in one year's time we are talking about having more numbers of academy players in our squad.
“We have talent there; we just need to give them time and space to grow.”